Since the early 1990s, the prefix über- has also frequently been used as a borrowing from German.[1] The suffix -zilla, expressing a monstrous quality, can also be considered an augmentative form.

In some parts of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, the prefix "auld" is used as an augmentative, and a pejorative in some cases. An example of this is using "auld'un" or "auld one" to describe one's parents/grandparents.

German

In German, there are different ways to build augmentatives. They are rarely used prefixes:

Un-, for instance in Unzahl, Unsumme, Unmenge. Note: Un- is mostly used for negation (e.g. Unglück, Unsinn), and occasionally in a pejorative sense (Unwetter, Untier).

Ur-, for instance, uralt.

Über-, for instance, "Übermensch".

Aber-, for instance, Abertausend.

Mega-, for example megageil

Ultra-, for example ultracool

Voll-, for example Vollpfosten

Swedish

In Swedish the way to build augmentative is to add one of many prefixes before the word. This can be done on words in most word classes. The most common prefixes are: "jätte-" (giant-), "bauta-", "mega-".

Examples:

hus (house) → megahus (gigantic house)

snabb (fast) → jättesnabb (very fast)

sten (rock) → bautasten (boulder)

There are many synonyms to "jätte-" although only when "jätte-" means "very", not big. Some of these synonyms are: "as-", "gör-", "svin-", "skit-" and "ur-" although, as written above, these don't change the size of a noun they just change gul (yellow) to jättegul (very yellow). The use of prefixes to build augmentative is quite colloquial and is seldom used in formal text and speech. Then adjectives and adverbs are used instead.

Suffixes -accio, -accia, and -astro, -astra, also exist, but they are used to form pejorative words, with no properly augmentative meaning: coltellaccio (< coltello 'knife'; gives English cutlass); the family name Carpaccio.

Portuguese

In Portuguese, the most common augmentatives are the masculine -ão (sometimes also -zão or -zarrão) and the feminine -ona (or -zona), although there are others, less frequently used. E.g. carro "car", carrão "big car"; homem "man", homenzarrão "big man"; mulher "woman", mulherona "big woman".

Sometimes, especially in Brazilian Portuguese, the masculine augmentative can be applied to a feminine noun, which then becomes grammatically masculine, but with a feminine meaning (e.g. "o mulherão" instead of "a mulherona" for "the big woman"); however, such cases usually imply subtle meaning twists, mostly with a somewhat gross or vulgar undertone (which, nonetheless, is often intentional, for the sake of wit, malice or otherwise; so, mulherão actually means not a big woman, but a particularly sexy one).

Romanian

In Romanian there are several augmentative suffixes: -oi/-oaie, -an/-ană etc. (masc/fem pairs).
From an unattested Late Latin -onus, -ona, the origin of the other Romance augmentative suffixes.
The archaic form has survived unchanged in Banat ( and in Aromanian) as -on', -oan'e
As in other languages, a feminine base word may have masculine or feminine forms in the augmentative. Examples:

Polish

Russian

In Russian there is a variety of augmentatives formed with prefixes (including loans from Latin) and suffixes, including -ище and -ин for example: дом (the house) домище (great house) домина (huge house). To provide an impression of excessive qualities the suffix -га can be used for example: ветер (the wind), ветрюга (strong wind).

Croatian and Serbian

In Croatian and Serbian there is a variety of augmentative nouns formed with suffixes:[5][6][7][8]

Augmentative nouns are either pejoratives or hypocorisms.[9] All augmentative nouns have female grammatical gender. Some nouns can have their augmentatives formed with different suffixes, for example, see 'kuća' above.

In Hrvatska gramatika, Barić et al. do not classify adjectives formed with suffixes which intensify an action or property as augmentatives. The augmentative prefixes for adjectives listed in Hrvatska gramatika are pre- ("excessively"; or excess of a favorable property),[10] hiper- ("hyper-"), super- and ultra-.[8] According to Hrvatska enciklopedija, augmentative verbs surpass their base verb with their intensity.[7] However, by defining augmentative verbs as an action done excessively,[11]Hrvatska gramatika only lists pre- ("over-") as an augmentative verb.[8]

Notes

^Note that Dutch bloed- is unrelated to English bloody. The former is formed in analogy with bloedeigen (‘very own’), bloedrood (‘very red’), &c. wherein it originally had its proper meaning ‘blood’ (‘of your own blood’, and ‘blood red’) whereas the latter's origin is uncertain but according to the OED might refer to the habits of the aristocracy (those of the blood): bloody drunk.